How to start learning Chinese? Now more and more people are coming to a decision to start learning Chinese. Everyone has his own way to this decision, but having accepted it, one asks where to start learning Chinese. Anyone will suggest the best Chinese language school in angmokio. But this not the only solution, in this article we tried to collect basic advice and recommendations for beginning Sinologists.

The main thing is perseverance and patience, as in many other endeavors. No matter how trite, but it’s true. Probably, for Chinese this is the fact, as for any other language. To say that the language is difficult is not to say anything. But, as the Chinese people’s wisdom says – who wants, he will achieve. Therefore, from the outset, tune in to maximum investment and dedication.

To begin with, one must understand what the Chinese language is. In fact, this concept is collective. In different parts of China, there are dialects of the Chinese language, so different from each other phonetically that if carriers of different dialects try to talk to each other using each of their dialects; they simply will not understand each other. But if they take a piece of paper and write their words on it, mutual understanding will be achieved. Chinese hieroglyphic writing is common to all dialects, and therefore they cannot be singled out in separate languages, although the degree of their phonetic difference for such a selection is greater than enough.

In order to have a universal means of communication within the whole country, on the basis of the most common dialects, the official Chinese language of Putonghua was developed. This is the Chinese language that we, foreigners, usually teach. You, of course, can study purposefully one of the many Chinese dialects, but this should be due to some specific goals, for example, scientific ones. You will spend the amount of effort comparable or incomparable with studying Putonghua, and you will only be understood in that part of China, where this dialect occurs. And Putonghua is a universal version of the Chinese language spoken (at least should be spoken of) anywhere in China.

Sound system of the Chinese language

The study begins with the concept of the sound system. The sound composition of the Chinese language is radically different from the sound compositions of our language family (Russian, English, German, Spanish, etc.). Here is how we – the smallest sound unit is a sound, a letter corresponds to it on the letter, syllables are formed from the sounds, and from them – words.

In the Chinese language, however, there is no concept of the letter, the minimal sound unit is a syllable that consists of several distinct sounds. On the letter, the syllable corresponds to a hieroglyph. The number of syllables in Chinese is limited, in Mandarin it is 414. Each syllable has a Latin spelling, which is called pinyin.